bing bong

Bing bong! The school bell rang, and I walked into the class. Everybody's thoughts rushed into my head, but one caught my attention. In a dull, lifeless voice, the thought said, “I will plan on dying next Tuesday; I will mark it on the calendar…” I looked around the room for the suspect, but there were 28 chattering kids in the class, and the voice people thought was different from the people they spoke in, so I couldn’t even go around the class talking to kids to find the voice. The school bell rang again, and this time, everyone sat down in their seats quietly. I walked over to my seat, and the teacher entered the classroom. The teacher said, Hello, today we will read chapters 5-7 of the book Great Gatsby. Although the teacher spoke of the book, his thoughts were on how he forgot to drink the cup of coffee he made, and now it was just getting cold sitting on the counter. 

I looked around for the suspect. Everybody in the front row of the classroom looked focused on the teacher; the second row also looked pretty focused, the third row had some delinquent-looking fellows who were reading magazines, comics, and dozing off, and the next row was the row behind me and it was the last row. It was hard to observe the last row without being called out by the teacher and my neck straining. All after english class was math class and so the math teacher came in and talked about math equations and trinomials but all I could think about that classmate and his thoughts of dying. Then came lunch and the bell rang, then I heard the voice of the suspect and it said, “Hmmm, what should I eat for lunch…. Sandwich and salad or…. Pizza. I think I will go with a ham sandwich” I jumped up from my seat looking around the room. But no one looked like they were thinking about ham sandwiches or pizza. Some kids were sitting around others desks while others were sleeping or listening to music. There were some kids who looked like they were leaving to classroom for lunch. Nobody looked sad at all since that was the expression I thought I would see on the face of somebody who wants to die. I sat back down to gather my thoughts again and looked around once again. That day I ate my lunch in silence waiting for the voice to appear among the many others. I waited and waited until after lunch and it was time to go home. I got up listening to snippets of people's voices but only the loudest thinkers could be heard. I reluctantly grabbed my backpack and got up to walk home. I walked home thinking about the voice and wondered If I could ever save the person from their own fate.

I got home, did homework and went to bed. The next day I decided to get to school bright and early so I could be the first person to enter the classroom and hear each individual personally. So I entered the classroom and walked to my desk to sit down, Then some other kids came in and talked. I glanced at them listening to their conversation, none of them seemed to be the voice though. I repeated the process and soon the classroom was full and I couldn’t hear the voice. At this point I was a little frustrated and anxious. Morning class passed by in a flash as I was in my own thoughts and listening to the thoughts around me. The bell rang and lunch began. I got up to go to the bathroom. I walked down the hall into the bathroom, did my business and went to go wash my hands, when somebody else also went to the sink on my left. Then I heard the voice I had sought out for the last day and a half. The voice said, “ hmmm… maybe I should eat outside by the tree today…”. The person turned off the faucet to the sink and started to walk out. I slowly followed them into our classroom. I watched them intensely so they didn’t leave my sight. I quickly grabbed my lunch box as he walked out of the classroom and followed him from a distance. He walked through the doors and out to a bench under a tree. The boy sat down and I walked up to the bench sitting down beside him. He glanced at me and silently ate his lunch. Biting on a crispy apple I pulled from my lunch I saw him eating a turkey,lettuce, and cheese sandwich on wheat bread. I looked at him and asked,”Does your sandwich taste good?” I stared at myself for a while and said, “It is ok, the wheat bread is a little stale…”. I replied with, “ Oh, that's nice. Do you like school?”. He responded by saying, “ It is good.”. I countered with, “Do you really like it or are you just saying a generic response?”. He looked away from me and was about to reply when the school bell rang. I got up from my seat grabbing my lunch and said let's eat here tomorrow. Running for my class I made it in time. I sat down in my seat and sighed and then it struck me, I didn’t even know his name.